The Week in Coal: 2-16-10

by: heath_harrison

Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 05:50:22 AM EST

- Musician and West Virginia native Kathy Mattea paid a visit to our neighbors in Kentucky and took part in the "I Love the Mountains" rally in Frankfort.

"Since learning about mountaintop removal, I've had a deep ache in the pit of my stomach, a deep yearning for these mountains I know so well and love so much," she said.
[...]
"Everyone is scared, she said. "If my house has turned from a quiet sanctuary into a living nightmare, I am in deep anguish.
"On the other hand, if I have a decent job, and suddenly I'm going to be without a way to provide for my family, I am in deep anguish."
"How do we honor the deep human needs on both sides of this conflict?"

- Stenographer of the Week: Politico. Normally, this award goes to the local media (even though the absence of any real journalism there is no surprise), but the right-leaning national news site really earned this one.

You wouldn't expect them to do a progressive or even down-the-middle story, but the glaring omission in Jonathan Martin's piece,"Republicans mine coal-country anxieties," is still astonishing.

Martin manages to profile disgraced judge Elliot "Spike" Maynard's quest to unseat Rep. Nick Rahall without mentioning the name Don Blankenship even once. (I hear he has something to do with this coal stuff, after all.)

Instead, Spike gets ample space to whine about "liberal Democrats" and break out the fearmongering.

Martin mentions that Maynard is both a former judge and a former Democrat, without explaining exactly how that came about.

Politico leaves their readers to believe that it's the result of some principled stand on the issues, rather than the fact that the Democratic Party booted Maynard out in the primary due to scandal.

Given that Blankenship is the reason "former" precedes Spike's titles, and the fact that The Coalfield Don likely recruited and will be bankrolling Maynard, it's puzzling why such a relevant bit of background info was left out.

But maybe I'm being too hard on Martin. It might simply be an obscure story he didn't hear about. It's not like it resulted in Don Blankenship assaulting and threatening the lives of an ABC News team on national TV or anything.

(The New York Times, by the way, had no problem remembering Blankenship.)

- While Spike was off courting the rightwing media in D.C., Congressman Rahall paid a visit to Bobby Nelson and took calls on Huntington radio's "Tri-State Talk" (audio HERE)

- The Logan Banner reports on the formation of a "grassroots" group called Young West Virginians for Coal. Its purpose is to give folks under 35 a chance to "Stand up for Coal"^(TM). The group plans to be active on college campuses. No word yet on high schools, but if they do go there, I'm sure Delegate Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan) and his neverending concern about politicizing the young will be right on top of that.

- TENTHMIL has audio and print interviews up with photojournalist Laura Antrim Caskey about her long form project "Dragline," done while she working with Climate Ground Zero.

- Obama's MSHA is targeting the types of mine safety violations that most often lead to deaths.

- It's a law of nature in West Virginia that every time Sen. Rockefeller does something really great, he has to make up for it by doing something incredibly embarrassing.
  True to form,  he followed up his year of excellent advocacy for health care reform by attacking the White House for not being aggressive enough in pushing for the use of mythological "clean coal."

- Gov. Manchin thinks coal ash is just dandy and doesn't want you to call it waste.

- and Blankenship made $5.8 million this week from selling some of his stock. His rank-and-file employees are still suffering from a 6 percent pay cut.